The days when optimising websites for Google was a matter of making some text adjustments, adding  meta data and building backlinks are long gone. These traditional methods are not redundant however,  they still have a role to play, but the internet’s constant evolution means that ever more factors need to be taken into account for companies that want to be found on the web.

The increasing rapidity with which Google changes its search algorithm is an indication of how fast things are moving in the world of internet marketing and SEO.

In the past year, Panda, Caffeine, Freshness and Search Plus Your World are all Google updates that have fundamentally altered the way search works. There is no longer a unified search return; different users will get different results dependent on their location and social networks.

The results of these changes are that online ranking is now dependent on many more factors. Today, SEO techniques require a fully diversified approach that takes into account on page optimisation, backlinks, a content strategy, social media and additional factors. The combined use of these practices is necessary to keep ahead of your competitors and maintain a highly visible presence over the whole of the internet.

The internet is evolving at such a rapid pace that staying ahead of the game is no simple matter. Large companies often have the resources for their marketing departments to keep abreast of the changes, however small enterprises do not have this luxury. Therefore, outsourcing to professional companies represents a sensible solution to the increasing complexity of internet marketing.

The mighty search engine Google caused controversy this month when it updated its search algorithm to incorporate results from its own social media network, Google Plus.

When undertaking a search the new update, known as ‘Search, Plus Your World’, provides search users with results drawn in part, from content shared by people in the user’s Google Plus network. However, the change has caused disagreement in the tech industry not least among Google’s competition in the world of social networks.

Twitter was particularly critical of the change describing it as a ‘bad day for the internet’ and claiming that it ‘warped’ search results. Other industry experts voiced concerns that the update skewed results and led to a decline in the world’s most popular search engine’s ability to provide the most relevant results. They claimed that the failure to include results from other social networks like Facebook and Twitter was a mistake.

Google hit back that its terms of service with both those networks did not allow it to perform the kind of deep searches required to include the information in their results and claimed it was prepared to discuss the issue with rival companies.

Quality of search results was not the only issue seized on by critics of the update. Google, which has already drawn the attention of lawmakers with regard to its potential monopoly over online advertising, was – according to some observers – in breach of anti-trust regulations regarding Search, Plus Your World.

They argued that Google’s dominant position in the world of search did not allow it to discriminate against rivals.

One of Facebook’s data centre managers has spoken out against rival companies’ decision to keep their data centre designs a secret.

According to a report by tech magazine Wired, Ken Patchett, who manages a Facebook data centre in Prineville, Oregon, USA, has openly criticised the likes of Google for trying to gain a competitive advantage by keeping the designs of their data centres under wraps.

Patchett left Google to join Facebook last year; whilst at Google, he supervised the company’s data centre campus at The Dalles, Oregon.
He told Wired that on joining Google he was made to sign an agreement that would prevent him from sharing any details about Google’s data centre design for at least a year after leaving the organisation.

Patchett said that although this kind of secrecy is commonplace in the industry, it “doesn’t make sense at all” because he thinks that there is in fact no competitive advantage to a company who keeps their data centre design secret.

He told Wired: “How servers work has nothing to do with the way your software works and the competitive advantage comes from manipulating your software.”

Facebook, on the other hand, is very open about its data centre designs. In April it launched the Open Compute Project in order to share the custom-engineered design of its Prineville data centre.

The centre features rows of energy efficient machines which cool the facility with air from the outside instead of electricity-powered water chillers.

It has also published the specs and CAD files for the data centre’s servers, power suppliers and building design on its blog.

Nearly 90% of Facebook users say that they hate the new changes to the social media website.

The poll, conducted by community website SodaHead.com, also found that 91% of teenage users said that Facebook had worsened since the update.

If the figures were translated across Facebook’s user base, this would mean that the equivalent of 688million people preferred the social media site before it changed dramatically at the beginning of last month.

The changes included a Twitter-style news ticker at the top right-hand side of the page and a revamped news feed which many users have complained is more difficult to follow than its previous incarnation.

Nearly 80% of the site’s young users said that the website should get rid of the updates, with 89% of women and 78% of men in agreement with them.

The only group surveyed who approved of the changes were IT workers. Some 55% of those in the industry are pleased with the new-look Facebook. Beware web designers!  You may not automatically be on the same wavelength as the people you are designing for.

However, they were in the minority amongst the 1094 people who took part in the survey.

One respondent wrote on the website: “It sucks. Facebook needs to quit trying to ‘keep up with the Googles’ and just be the best version of Facebook.

“It worked because it was simple, uncluttered and didn’t require any thought process. Now, not so much.”

Google+ may not be the big hit that it appeared to be when it launched.

The social networking site has lost 60% of its active users since 20 September, the date on which it was fully opened up to the public.

The news may well come as a surprise to those outside Google, especially as initial signs pointed to the kind of success that Google is used to. On 20 September, traffic to the site increased by a massive 1200% over that one day.

Web analytics organisation Chitika has released a report that attempts to explain the huge drop in user numbers.

It states: “The supply of users for social media is limited. To survive you must stand out and provide a service that others do not.”

Critics of the service have said that Google+ does not provide enough differentiation from its main rival Facebook in order to encourage users to migrate to it from Mark Zuckerberg’s site.

What’s more, Facebook users know that they will be able to connect to practically all of their family and friends thanks to its huge user numbers – 800 million at the last count.

By way of advice to Google+, the Chitika report states: “’Perhaps if Google can accelerate their current pace of innovation on their social network offering, Google+ could becoming a competitive alternative to its arch-rival, Facebook.

“Otherwise, given Facebook’s clout and reputation of rapid innovation, Google+ might just be left in the dust.”

Google is set to extend its web hosting capabilities with the opening of a new data centre in Dublin.

The search engine giant has said that it will invest about $101m (£65m) on the new data centre, which will expand on the data centre space that it is already hiring in the city.

The data centre will employ around 30 people; there are already more than 2000 people working for Google in Dublin.

Google also announced that it will be building new data centres in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan in order to strengthen its offering in Asia.

The organisation is also continuing to expand its data centre provision in its native country. It has just opened a new data centre in Oklahoma and says that it will go on to build a second data centre on the same time.

Google chooses its data centre locations in cities with moderate temperatures that are ideal for data centre cooling, an energy-efficient tactic. For example, its data centre in Hamina, Finland, uses cold water from the Baltic Sea instead of electrically powered chillers.

John Herlihy, head of Google Ireland, said: “We’re very happy to continue investing in Ireland and to build out our presence here even further. The new data centre will be one of the most energy-efficient in Google’s global fleet.”

Ever more data for the search engines means ever more effective searching and linking for web-site designs.

Millions of Facebook users have used their pages to stage protests after the social media giant implemented sizeable changes to its site last wopening the way to possible changes in the world of social networking.

The changes are an attempt by Facebook to replicate the features of Google+ and Twitter, such as grouping friends, acquaintances and colleagues together, or the live update feed and option to subscribe to users’ status updates.

Facebook also suggests people for users to follow, in the same vein as Twitter, with Mark Zuckerberg’s former business partner Eduardo Saverin and MySpace founder Tom Anderson being two prominent suggestions.

As a result, the home page is more cluttered than ever, leading to many users bemoaning Facebook’s loss of simplicity.

A number of groups have been set up in protest, including  “Petition against the new Facebook homepage”, whilst many others are copying and pasting anti-Facebook images and status updates to their profile pages.

One such status update partially reads: “Facebook, you’re not near as smart as you think you are. Your algorithms for deciding what I want to see, who I want to talk to or what I think is important are 99.999% of the time the exact polar opposite of what I want.

“Everything you do to try to simplify things only complicates things more… Facebook should never consider themselves too big to fail. You’re not… repost if you agree.”

Experts are now keeping a close eye on Google+ to see how many Facebook users defect over to the site.

The new Yahoo!/Bing search collaboration seems to be working.

The latest stats from the USA show that the Microsoft’s search engine is finallly beginning to catch up with Google.

The new combined search site has won a four per cent market share within Stateside search, mostly at the expense of its rival.

Although the change has happened very slowly, it could point towards long-term challenges for Google as it finds itself with a more equal competitor.

According to figures from Experian Hitwise, Bing searches accounted for around 28.99% of all US search enquiries last month – an increase from 28.05% during the previous month.

Hitwise also says that Google’s market share currently stands at around 65%. Just over a year ago in August 2010, just before Yahoo! and Bing merged, Google had a 71.59% market share.

Microsoft have previously commented that they would keep “working and working”  to win their battle with Bing, rather than having expectations of a quick win over the search engine giant.

The news has ramifications for SEO specialists, as they will now need to factor Bing/Yahoo! increasingly into their strategies, rather than solely focusing on optimising search within Google.

Experts are now watching to see whether the trend will be replicated in the UK.

Google will kill off ten of its experimental services as part of what it is calling a “fall spring-clean”.

On its blog, the internet giant wrote: “Technology improves, people’s needs change, some bets pay off and others don’t. Over the next few months we’ll be shutting down a number of products and merging others into existing products as features.”

Amongst those being scrapped include Aardvark, the social question-and-answer service that allows users to submit questions to people in their social networks.

Google acquired Aardvark for US$50m (￡30m) around 18 months ago. The service was founded by a team of ex-Google employees.

Other services to be closed down include Google Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Pack and Image Labeller.

Meanwhile, Google Maps will no longer support Flash APIs and Google Web Security will cease to be on sale, although it will continue to support existing customers.

Google says that shutting down these services will improve the overall Google experience. All the Googlers working on the soon-to-close projects will be moved over to “higher-impact products”, according to the organisation. These products are expected to include Google+, as well as web applications such as Gmail and Google Docs.

The news follows the shut-down of Google Labs a few months ago.

Social media has been front page news this week, yet it’s hard to believe some people are unsure of its potential for their business.

A recent poll of US SMEs by insurer Hiscox found only 12% considered social media essential to promotion, with 50% not using social media in a business context at all.

Among the remaining 50%, there is probably uncertainty about how social media positively impacts ROI, and that it is a ‘fad’ and ‘something big brands do.’

Whether on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, the concept of starting a conversation with your customers, a more direct and instant one than ever before, is here to stay.

The key is to remain focused about your overall business objectives. If you sell shoes, then you need to interact with your customers on social media where they are likely to want to engage with your content and offers.

In the non-virtual world, this is like ensuring your shoe shop is on the high street where people do their shopping, or placing an ad in women’s fashion magazine.

Social media is no different. What you do, say, offer and discuss needs to be relevant, timely and engaging.

It is true that not all your potential customers are glued to Facebook and Twitter twenty-four-seven, so you need to consider social media as part of your marketing mix and get the right strategy in place.

Knowledge is power. And arming yourself with the know-how about what works in social media and what doesn’t is the first step to getting it right.